Ukip Members Mock Nelson Mandela's Death And Call For Apartheid 'Reappraisal'

Nelson Mandela's death prompted Ukip members to pour scorn on a man who "did nothing" for Britain, call for a "reappraisal" of the apartheid regime and suggest that some are "intended by nature" to be slaves.

Writing on Ukip's members-only forum days after Mandela's death, West London member David William Griffiths quoted from the Greek philosopher Aristotle to argue that some are "intended by nature" to be slaves and a mere "possession" of another man.

Griffiths went on to suggest, by quoting William Blake, that the same laws for "the lion and Ox" is "oppression". The Ukip activist also chose to title his forum post "apartheid - time for a reappraisal?".

Asked by another member why he chose to make his point in asking others to "reappraise apartheid" just through quotations, Griffiths responds with another quotation, from the Greek philosopher Diogenes Laertius, to say he wanted to avoid the "ridicule of the common people".

Simon Cressy, from the HOPE not Hate campaign, told the Huffington Post UK: "There are certain members of Ukip who'd like to turn back the clock and go back to the days of the 1950s and 1960s."

In a post last month, Pamela Preedy, secretary of Ukip's Redcar branch, wrote: "Showing lack of hysterical grief and an unwillingness to join in an orgy of self-indulgent news coverage with every journo and TV reporter flying out to South Africa to count the floral tributes - this could lead to complaints from Labour and Limpdem councillors and thought-police action, complete with arrest, lock up and fingerprinting".

She went on to compare the "overkill" over Mandela's death to the "genuine mass mourning" over Princess Diana's death in 1997 that were a "fitting tribute".

"It makes me laugh to see the overkill of coverage about this man who had nothing to do with Britain and did nothing for Grimsby or anywhere in the UK," she wrote.

Another Ukip activist, John Patrick, described the news coverage about Mandela's death as "almost like the Second Coming" and wondered whether something was "hiding behind all this veneration".